This invention deals generally with the ballasting of ships and more specifically with using shifting weights which travel up a tilted auxiliary mast to counteract the wind forces on a sail.
The classic sailboat has stays to maintain the mast upright, and the sail is supported from the mast so that the boat heels or tilts when subjected to the force on the sail of the wind coming from either side of the boat. The tendency of a sailboat to heel is so ingrained in the art of sailing that little consideration is given to the possibility of preventing it.
There are, however, advantages to be gained from a boat which does not heel and which is always oriented essentially horizontally. The absence of heel permits the hull to be designed with a flat bottom because the flat bottom will always be oriented in approximately a horizontal plane. Furthermore, a flat bottom with a step aft can be designed to plane on the water, and therefore can attain lower drag in the water and higher speeds. A boat which does not heel because it includes automatically operated ballast also permits the crew the luxury of working the boat without the necessity of also being audibly controlled ballast which moves from one side of the deck to the other or even hangs over the sides to prevent the wind forces from capsizing the boat.
It has also always been assumed that all sailboats, even the smallest, require stays to keep the mast upright and straight against the wind force on the sail. However, a mast without lateral stays permits the use of much larger foresails which can be rigged to overlap the mainsail and extend below it almost to deck level, thus employing the venturi effect to advantage. This is one of the most significant advantages of the invention. Take for example the enormous jibs on the America Cup yachts where jibs supply most of the drive when pointing to windward, yet are precluded by the lateral stays from benefiting fully from the venturi effect.